Our view: Time to protect and serve

There is a real disconnect in policing in this community when a landlord can show officers evidence of crime and nothing happens.

Vicki Smith manages the Colonial Grove Apartments on DeSiard Street. Smith says Monroe police knew Christopher Robinson's name long before taking him into custody on a second-degree murder charge last week.

Smith said there were several other incidents in the recent past to warrant attention from police.

She said she called MPD for three months to complain about Robinson reportedly trespassing on her property and dealing drugs outside Apartment No. 32, where she said he had taken up residence by force.

Before the July 19 attack in which Robinson reportedly beat tenant James Atwell to death with a 2- to 3-foot long stick, Smith reached out to The News-Star in her frustration about how "worn out" she felt "with this whole mess."

Robinson, 20, used to work for Smith as a maintenance man, but she believed he was also burglarizing the complex. After she fired and evicted him, Smith said Robinson knew the official tenant of Apartment No. 32 had suffered injuries in a car accident late last year, forcing that woman to stay with her mother.

Smith said, "He knew since he worked here that she wasn't staying there. So he just took the apartment over totally. Stole my stove, stole my refrigerator, trashed the apartment, totally ruined all her stuff, stole and sold everything that was worth anything in there.

Smith said officers told her they would get a warrant for his arrest, but she said Robinson remained on her property every day.

This vignette of one person's experience is unfortunately not unique. Over the past few months, The News-Star has reported multiple stories about people who have not been able to obtain what they would consider to be active policing from officers of the Monroe Police Department.

About two months ago, Smith said she took a Monroe police officer into the trashed apartment filled with used condoms, bullet casings and drug paraphernalia.

"I showed the police officers all this stuff laid out," Smith said. "I showed them this set up, where they had sold my refrigerator and stove, pushed a table over there in that place, and that's where they were cutting and bagging and weighing and doing their deal."

Smith said she asked the officers, "You see this? You see what they're doing?"

She said the officer replied, "It's apparent," but did nothing.

"They didn't take it. They didn't take a fingerprint, they didn't confiscate (it), they didn't do anything," Smith said.

Though she asked repeatedly for additional patrols of the area, and though Monroe police logs indicate officers complied, Smith said she never saw officers driving through the complex.

Smith's multiple reports were surely logged as calls, but when asked if Monroe police received any complaints about Robinson prior to his arrest, Assistant Police Chief Don Bartley said, "He has had contact with law enforcement before," and cited a 2011 burglary charge as an example.

While we believe there's certainly a place where the buck stops, we also wonder about what is happening on the street.

With this situation, and certainly others, the foot soldiers of the Monroe Police Department are not providing the citizens of this city with the service and aggressive pursuit of crime we believe we are paying for and we deserve.

You are sworn to protect and serve. Let's see it in action.

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Our view: Time to protect and serve

There is a real disconnect in policing in this community when a landlord can show officers evidence of crime and nothing happens.